Jaws
by Jesuslovesmarina
Summary: After a traumatic experience at Torchwood, Jack is having trouble recuperating, and the fact that his team keeps bugging him about it is not helping! A series of unfortunate events, however, culminates in one in particular that may be the key to helping him heal...This is a TW fic but is listed under DW because I haven't actually seen TW. I don't own either show and please review!
1. Chapter 1

Hello, Everyone! Marina here (: As I said in the description, I haven't seen Torchwood, hence me listing it under DW. This is basically a mashup of random things I've picked up about Torchwood from the internet, combined with my own ideas and the obvious connection to DW that the show has. This is the first revision of the story, which I wanted to publish first and get reviews on before I published the next draft. I hope y'all enjoy it! Updates are daily!

_Jaws_

_Chapter 1_

It had been three weeks since the team at Torchwood 3 had pulled Jack Harkness out of a sidewalk. Trapped in concrete that had solidified all around, even inside of him, keeping him locked in a never-ending cycle of life and death, life and death. After a solid three hours of that torture, Tosh, Owen, Gwen, and Ianto had missed him and went looking for him with the scanner.

He'd never looked into exactly what they had done to get him out, or to extract the cement from inside his body so he could start recovering somewhat. He never thought about it.

Dreamed about it? Yes.

Woke up in the middle of the night screaming and thinking he was still trapped? Definitely.

At least the worst that could happen to him in his immortal form had happened now. No more wondering about what being buried alive would be like—he knew all too well.

Jack was used to bouncing back from horrible things—it was a trait he had sort of picked up from the Doctor, truthfully. That, and the famous, "I'm always all right," line. It was the morning of his second day back on the job, and he was pretty relieved to be back.

Coffee, aliens, and cracking jokes with the team. They'd already blown up the lab twice this morning, and were all set to try a third experiment before lunch.

"Owen, where's the blood kit? The UKSP sent us a sample."

"Jack, look at this! Spaceship detections off the chart today! And," Gwen's face lit up considerably, "it looks like we have the Doctor!"

"No, way!" He grinned, hurrying over to the scanner. "Keep an eye on it. I promised him we wouldn't interfere next time he showed up, but you never know what can happen."

Frowning at his empty coffee mug, he went to fill up again, when suddenly his foot slipped and the ground came crashing toward his face. The mug flew out of his hand, barely avoiding breakage when it hit the thin carpet, but Jack's face felt a bit smashed. "Ow," he muttered, picking himself back up.

"Jack!" Tosh exclaimed, giving him a hand.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he chuckled, straightening his jacket sleeves. "Gosh, I can't believe I keep falling like that. What's wrong with clumsy old me?"

He noticed that Gwen was giving him a hard stare.

And so was Ianto.

And so was Owen.

"What?" he demanded, shrugging to show he didn't have a clue what all of it meant.

Gwen marched up to him and took him by the shoulders, and by the look on her face, whatever she had to say wasn't going to sound very good. He leaned back slightly, to somewhat escape the sardine breath. Gwen really liked her sardines this time of year.

"YOU. HAVEN'T. RECOVERED YET!" Gwen shouted angrily in his face.

He winced and shrugged. "Alright, alright, alright, okay! I'll go home!" Glancing around at his other teammates, he saw that the rest had the same determined expression as Gwen had. Annoyed at them, he half-smiled. "I mean, if that's what all you beautiful people want, is for me to leave…"

Owen got up from his chair. "I'll drive you, Jack."

"I don't need somebody to drive me!" he protested.

"Yes, you do," Ianto piped up, turning back to his work before Jack could glare at him, too.

"Come on, get your coat," Gwen continued, grabbing it from the hook as Tosh literally pushed him in the direction of the door.

"Guys, what? Guys! Really, this is getting embarrassing…" He felt his ears beginning to turn red, and that _never_ happened to him.

"See you tomorrow, Cap," Ianto was saying, giving him a last shove through the doorframe as Owen pulled out his keys.

Awkwardly, he pulled on his old World War II coat, not knowing what to feel about his team's sudden, completely irrational concern for him. Giving them a raised-eyebrow look as he stepped into the passenger's side, he settled into Owen's car.

"Man, your windows are down," he noted.

His friend shrugged. "Fresh air. My dog stinks this thing up so bad it's the only way to keep it decent."

As he fastened his seatbelt, Gwen strode over to the open window. "See you tomorrow, boss."

"Honestly, Gwen—" his protest was cut short when she ducked inside the window to give him a quick peck on the cheek.

He smirked. "I think you missed."

She just frowned and walked away as Owen rolled the windows up.

Sighing heavily, he leaned back in his seat as they drove off. "Seriously, Owen, why is everybody fussing over me so much?"

"You collapsed three times, just this morning," Owen raised his eyebrows as he drove.

"I did not _collapse_!" he groaned. "I _tripped_! There's a big difference, and there's no reason to act like I'm dying. I'm immortal, for heaven's sake!"

Owen let him rant, but Jack frowned when he thought he saw a trace of a smile on the other man's face.

"I seriously thought I was the Team Captain, not the bloody Team Invalid," he muttered under his breath.

"You are the Captain," Owen nodded. "and, for a while, may I remind you, you _were_ the Team Invalid. And pretty bloody, too, although I've been told not to discuss that in front of you."

"That remark," Jack said, irritated, "could come out of your paycheck, if you're not careful."

"And we're here!" his friend grinned, stopping in front of Jack's apartment complex. "Rest up, if you know what's good for you."

"I'm fine," he huffed, stepping out onto the concrete, but as he did his foot hit the curb and he fell flat on his face for the fourth time that day.

"DRGH!" he pounded a fist into the ground, feeling Owen's eyes on his back as he slowly, painfully, picked himself up again.

Owen opened his mouth to say something, but upon receiving the death glare, he shut it again. "Call us if you need anything, Cap," he grimaced, shifting gears before he rolled off.

Jack stalked his way into the apartments, having not felt this frustrated in his entire life. Or at least, it felt that way. The landlady, Ms. Ganopy, was at the front, acting as receptionist on this particular morning, and she gave Jack a friendly smile.

He nodded curtly in reply. "Morning," he mumbled under his breath, though under normal circumstances he would've thought of something flirty to say to her. She really was pretty nice.

There was only one flight of stairs to climb to his apartment. Reaching the halfway, he suddenly felt as though something had zapped his brain completely. He barely realized he was falling before everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Had some dialogue issues in here, but oh well. Enjoy!**

**~Marina**

Chapter 2

His eyes open and he flew up into a sitting position, totally startling the people around him. The walls were white, the bed was white, everything was white—

"Why am I in a hospital?!" he demanded, a little more loudly than he intended.

The nurse next to him jumped nearly sky-high. "Oi! Shut it before you give people a heart attack! And lay back down!"

"I'm fine!" he exclaimed indignantly as she shoved him back onto the bed. "Seriously, which member of my team brought me here?!"

"Humm, let's see," she replied in a bored tone, picking up a clipboard, "It says here your landlady called 999 after you fell down the stairs of the apartment complex."

"Wait," he replied, puzzled, "You mean my team had nothing to do with it?"

"I don't know who your 'team' is," she rolled her eyes at him. "I don't bloody care who your 'team' is, either!"

Jack grinned slightly, trying to get on her good side again. "You know, I really do like a woman who's honest with me…"

She didn't look at him. "You know, kid, you'd be about two hair shy of gettin' slapped in the face if you weren't down as my patient!"

"I'm actually 132 years old," he replied, honestly.

Rolling her eyes dramatically, she set the clipboard back down. "The doctor will see you in a moment," she huffed at him, before disappearing behind the curtain to see another patient.

"Could be worse," he grinned, then noticed he was wearing a hospital gown. "Wait!" Jack stopped her, "Is my coat around here somewhere? It's kind of important to me," he rambled on, "since I got it during World War II and that was when I met the Doctor and Rose."

She gave him a look like he must be crazy.

"It's just—" he felt his ears color up for the second time that day, "sort of—_special_."

"Your clothes are in the back. You'll get 'em before you leave," she told him curtly, then disappeared again.

Jack sighed and leaned back on the pillows. He noticed his left hand was now in a splint, the kind used for fractures. Now that he noticed, it did kind of ache, and his head was killing him.

It seemed like an eternal wait for the doctor to arrive.

"Ah, Mr. Harkness?" the tall man addressed him with a smile, holding out his hand. Jack shook it, sitting up again to prove to the man that he really was ready to leave this place.

"The one and only," he replied, flashing his time-perfected grin. "Sorry about the fuss, Doctor, uh—Raddison," he read the man's tag, "I think I just kind of blacked out randomly. Just happened to be on the stairs, unfortunately."

"Well, I agree, as long as you don't have a concussion, which I'm about to check for, I think you're about free to go," Dr. Raddison agreed. "But when you were first brought in by the ambulance, we did a brain scan and I think we might've found something you need to see. First things first, though."

He picked up a flashlight to examine Jack's eyes, and the captain blinked rapidly when he took it away. "Woo, those are some bright eyes," he remarked.

Dr. Raddison let out a short laugh, surprised at Jack's wit. He felt the back of his head, where there was a pretty sore bump, and pulled off his gloves. "Yes, I think you're free to go," he acknowledged with a smile, signing off on the clipboard. "But let me explain these."

He pulled out several vinyl brain scan images from a folder under the table, and handed them to Jack.

Critically, Jack examined them. "You can tell me in detail, Doc," he told the other man. "I have a little experience with medical stuff."

"What's 'a little'?" Raddison laughed.

"Some time on the battlefield, and a couple extra years in college," Jack shrugged, thinking of the incident with nanogenes when he'd met the Doctor and Rose.

If only this doctor knew such things as the mysterious healing particles really existed, up in the sky and in another, more familiar time.

"You're having some slightly abnormal activity in the frontal cortex," the doctor explained, pointing to the unusually-colored area of one image. "It shows up in all three of these images, and we were speculating among ourselves earlier, while you were still unconscious, that this could maybe explain why you blacked out, although there could be hundreds of other causes, of course."

Jack nodded, not liking where this was going.

"Either way, since the area controls so much of conscious thought and decision-making, you should probably make plans at some point to visit a psychiatrist specializing in that area."

He scoffed. "I do not have a psychological issue!"

The doctor looked like he was trying to be patient. "Well, maybe you do or maybe you don't. But if you black out suddenly like that again, or you feel strange—you know, this area is one that often is the first one to suffer if someone goes through trauma—you mentioned some time spent in the service—?"

Jack shook his head. "Yeah, but that was ages ago! Literally," he added under his breath.

"Well, just keep those anyway," he instructed, standing to leave. "Mariah will be back in a second to sign you out and take you to your things."

"Sounds awesome," he grunted in reply, shaking the doctor's hand again and climbing out of the bed. He really couldn't wait to be home. _"Primitive 21'st century medical care_," he muttered quietly, so no one would hear.

Mariah, apparently the nurse who'd been a beast with him earlier, showed up almost immediately.

Jack, however, hadn't given up on getting her to melt, although frankly he hadn't seen such an ugly woman in a long time.

"You know," he raised his eyebrows in her direction as she proceeded to stack papers while ignoring him, "I should come to the hospital more often. You get to be in public undressed, sit around in bed, no lack of beautiful ladies…"

"Has anyone told you yet that you look like you crawled out of an ant's nest?" she snapped.

He smirked. "Has anyone ever told you you're the actual ant's nest?"

"I'll have you know, I don't get paid nearly enough to scrub your backside, Michael Jackson!"

"Then why stay?"

With an angry scrawl and a flourish, she signed off on the clipboard. "Signed you out of my care, Harkness. You're out of liability!" Pulling back her hand, she slapped him hard across the cheek before marching out of the curtained room, her massive amount of curly hair trailing behind.

Jack blinked a couple of times in shock, and to stop his eyes from watering. She hadn't slapped hard enough to knock him down, but it had been _rather _unexpected!

Sighing, he finally shook himself and got up to follow her out. He'd probably deserved it.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3_

Entering his apartment as it neared 4 o'clock, Jack tossed the brain scans wearily on the coffee table and went to look for some hypervodka in the fridge. Hopefully a shot or two would stop the throbbing in his head.

Suddenly, the phone rang behind him. He reached up, snapped his fingers twice, and the sweet, concerned voice of his landlady floated into the kitchen. "Jack, is that you?"

"Yep, it's me!" he replied, unenthusiastically.

"I thought I saw you come in downstairs. You got released awfully quickly! Are you all right?"

"Never better," he smiled a tiny bit before gulping down the first shot.

"I was so worried," she continued, "I almost came in the ambulance with you, but they said you'd be fine without me. Would you mind telling me what happened?"

"Actually, it was really nothing," he reassured her, a bit freaked out by the idea of Ms. Ganopy riding beside him in an ambulance. "I was just out for a few minutes. It was no big deal."

"Oh," she said quietly, "well, I'm glad to hear that."

There was a pause for a few seconds. Jack wished she would just get off the line.

"Well, I was just calling to check in, so I guess I'll leave you to rest," she concluded.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Hey, Ms. Ganopy?" he caught himself at the last second before she hung up. "Thanks for taking care of me, and—calling—and everything."

"Oh, it was no trouble, Jack," he could hear her smiling again on the other end of the line. "See you around."

A buzz, and the line went dead. Almost immediately, the phone rang again.

Rolling his eyes, Jack snapped his fingers again as he went to put the hypervodka back in the fridge.

"Jack!" came Tosh's voice.

Jack's heart sank.

"We heard you were in the hospital! What happened? Are you all right?"

He froze for a couple seconds, debating with his conscience, then snapped his fingers again to hang up.

He did NOT want his team fussing AGAIN, especially not now after they were already on top of him for his clumsiness at work. That was the last thing he needed. The very. Last. Thi—

"RIINGG!"

He stormed over to the actual handset instead of using the surround-bluetooth and yanked it off the charging stand. "WHAT?!" he bellowed into the receiver.

There was a pause. "Ow, my ear," Tosh's voice came back again. "What's gotten into you?"

"Look," he practically shouted at the device, "It's not what you think, and it's none of your business, and I don't want to talk about it, and for the hundred-thousandth time I've told you and the rest of the guys today, I'M FINE! So if you could just get off the line and leave me in peace, that would be lovely! Because I really don't need a bunch of stupid do-gooders, ESPECIALLY people from work, taking care of me every time something happens to me!"

He slammed the handset down on the charger again, and walked out into his living area, trying to pretend he didn't know that he'd just caused Tosh to burst into tears on the phone.

How had they even found out that he'd been in the hospital?

Unfortunately, however, he knew his team too well to forget what he had said. In his mind's eye, he saw the whole scene play out. Tosh would start crying, Owen would notice, rolling over in his chair to ask in a tender voice what was wrong. Ianto would confiscate the telephone from her hands and busily set about checking the call recipient. Gwen would come running from the back, see the group huddled together, and demand what was going on while hugging Tosh from behind.

"_It was Jack,"_ he could almost hear Ianto's shocked, disgusted voice. _"Jack said something that made you cry? What did he say, Tosh?" _

Tosh would shake her head, wiping her tears and refusing to explain, because she never wanted to say anything bad about her friends, and Ianto would throw the handset over the cubicle so Owen would have something to fix later when he'd thought about Jack's behavior long enough to get angry.

They would hate him tomorrow, and with good reason, but he himself was still too angry to think about it. They WERE far too nosy, and irritating, and they'd far exceeded their boundaries as employees and coworkers. It was as if they thought they were his—

Well, they weren't NOT his—

They were treating him like they were his—

_Family. _

They weren't really that.

How could they ever be? He remembered having a brother. That was it. And that hadn't lasted long, thanks to Jack's betraying him when he first joined the Time Agency. Jerryl was long dead; over a century since Jack had turned him in.

Family was something he'd never had—but his team were still his best friends, and now they would all be upset with him, in their various ways.

"How am I ever gonna fix this?" he muttered to himself, heading over to the couch.

Suddenly his feet went totally out from under him again. He saw the coffee table, and then it saw him.

"BANG!"

HE lay on the ground, not sure exactly what he'd managed to do this time and a tiny bit afraid to move.

"Ow," he mumbled, for what felt like the thirtieth time that day.

As if his head hadn't been pounding _before_ he bonked it on the corner of the solid oak table!

Feeling an abnormally either fresh or cool spot above his right eye, he scrambled back to his feet and went to check his face in the bathroom mirror. He groaned when he saw it: A half-inch gash, not bleeding yet, but much deeper than a scratch, right over his eyebrow.

Moving very slowly so as to not get the bleeding started just yet, he rummaged under the cabinets for butterfly bandages and finally pulled out three. It was maybe a bit much for that size of a gash, but he prayed as he taped it together that it would be at least somewhat healed by the next morning.

"_Just enough that nobody notices? Please?" _he thought to himself, miserably examining his patching-up job.

Inwardly, he knew there was no way that cut was going to be healed by morning.

And, as he remembered for the first time in half an hour, he was still wearing a splint over his fractured wrist.

At least he could _probably _get away with taking it off tomorrow, just for the day, so nobody found additional cause for coddling and worried comments.

Half-expecting something else to happen to him on the way to the couch, he made his way there as slowly and carefully as possible, finally managing to settle himself down safely with the phone book, where he flipped to the number of the Chinese restaurant down the road.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4_

The delivery girl had left her address book or something in the bottom of the takeout bag. Sprinting up from the couch again, Jack ran across the room to the door and opened it, leaning out to see if she was still close enough to hear him yell.

Strangely, she was nowhere in sight, but there was something brown and fuzzy on his doorstep.

Jack did a double take at the medium-sized creature, which was just sitting there, looking at him with big, brown eyes.

"What are you doing here?" he yelled at the medium-sized dog. "Go on, get!"

The dog didn't move; just sat there looking him up and down and wagging its tail.

"Get off my doorstep!" Jack continued trying. It was a short-haired dog, with fur that was brown but covered in large white patches. "Do you not know what 'go' means? Get out of here!"

The dog whined slightly, then got up and strode right toward the doorway.

"What—no! Oh, no, you don't!" he blocked it with his leg, trying to gently push it away. It had triangular, floppy ears and a face like a small lab. "Get. Out! I don't want you—"

Panting, it tried to dodge his leg and run into the apartment again. "Get!" he shouted at it finally, giving it a sharp kick.

A strangled yelp came from its throat, then a low growl, and it leapt at Jack's leg, seeing it as the true enemy. Before he could react, the brown dog had sunk its teeth into the flesh just above his ankle. "GAH!" he cried out, falling into the doorway, as the dog ran past him, right into the living room.

Jack panted heavily, scared about what this would mean. He lifted his pantleg and saw some small dents in his skin, surrounding two little puncture wounds from the dog's teeth that were already welling up with blood.

In a few moments, he had gotten to his feet, climbing back into the apartment and shutting the door behind him. "Alright you dirty mutt," he shouted, spotting the dog scrambling on the tile floor of the kitchen, "You wanted to stay in here? You get to stay in here!" He crouched down, careful to avoid putting weight on his injured leg, examining the dog's face to see if there was any foam around its mouth or any other sign of rabies.

He didn't see any, but that didn't mean he was convinced. "Well, now you're gonna stay here until I'm sure you don't have anything. With my luck, it'll be something highly contagious. Provided you don't pee on the carpet," he added, sternly. "Animal control won't be around 'till tomorrow morning." He sighed, rubbing his face with his hand.

His Chinese food was getting cold, but the bite on his ankle really needed taking care of. Grimacing, he hobbled over to the bathroom and washed it over the edge of the tub, noting that it was already swelling a little and red. He heard a _'whoosh!'_ behind him and whirled around to see that the dog had run into his bedroom and leaped up onto the bed, and was busy rubbing its scent into the blankets.

"Down! Bad dog! Get off the bed!" he shouted at it from inside the bathroom, hearing his voice echo off the walls.

It whined, but fortunately, hopped down and wandered off, probably back into the kitchen again.

Glad that it actually obeyed _some _commands, Jack stretched himself across the room to reach the cabinets without moving his foot, grabbed some first-aid gauze, and set about wrapping up the bite as it continued to bleed.

On his way out, he stopped to look at the gash above his eye again. It was taped up pretty well, and hadn't bled at all since he'd fixed it, so he carefully rubbed ointment on it, all the while cringing and trying to hurry as he heard strange sounds coming from the other room.

Stepping out, he saw that the dog had, sure enough, dumped out all his food from the takeout bag. Beef and broccoli were now strewn over the floor, along with half a container of rice, and said dog was now happily munching on an egg roll.

"Darn you!" he shouted at it again, causing it to shrink away and drag the egg roll, still in its mouth, off into a corner.

With a disgruntled sigh, he set about salvaging as much of his food as he could from the floor (which fortunately was most of it), and cleaning up the rest with a towel.

"You don't deserve that egg roll," he added, pointing at it as he passed by the corner.

The dog just stopped munching for a second, giving him a blank, innocent brown-eyed stare before going back to his stolen meal.

Jack groaned, knowing he'd relented, since it would be far easier for him to just let the mutt have it than try to take its food away.

Plus, he didn't really want to be bitten twice in one night by the same dog.

He collapsed on the couch, totally disregarding table manners as he shoved what was left of the meal into his mouth until it was gone.

He really dreaded going to work tomorrow.

Wait—he was limping around on this stupid dog bite!

He _couldn't_ go to work tomorrow!

"_It's probably as much of a relief to the rest of the team as it is to me,"_ he figured honestly. He'd just have to call Tosh—again—tomorrow morning. That in itself was enough to dread.

Exhausted, he left the dog to clean up the remains of the meal while he took a shower and changed into pajama pants and a T-shirt.

Coming back out of the bathroom, he worriedly glanced between the dog, standing innocently in the center of the living room, and his own bedroom. He sure _hoped_ the dog would decide to sleep at the same time he did, or there might be even more trouble.

Jack locked the front door and turned off all the lights before climbing into bed. He was just starting to drift off when a large, wet something suddenly nuzzled up against his elbow. It was a something that felt suspiciously like somebody's nose. "Get," he grumbled, shoving it off the bed. He heard it scramble back onto the floor and run off.

Finally, he fell asleep.

_Jack couldn't breathe. _

_He couldn't breathe at all, like someone had shoved a gag down his throat, into his chest, down into his lungs, and worst of all, it hurt like fire every time he moved. _

_His body writhed as it struggled its way back to life each time he tried to breathe and couldn't, each time he tried to move and ripped at his internal tissue in the process. _

_And it didn't stop. It would never stop. Panic rose up in his chest, then squashed again as he died. Again. No one was coming for him. No one could get him out of this—they didn't even know he was down here, and if they did they probably didn't care. _

_People passed him off as a freak, a trick, a joke. _

_No one would think of a man suffering endlessly until someone came to free him. _

_The only peace was in those brief moments of death; brief, very brief, before he was jerked back again. _

_There was no way out—it was like being smothered with rocks in an earthquake and drowning in the ocean at the same time. He couldn't move, but it was still all around him, melted right into a shape just his size, if not a little smaller. His chest convulsed, over and over, trying to breathe every second of every minute as they stretched into hours and hours. _

_If only his body would just rot away and be done with it, but no. He would be trapped in here until the planet's end, millions and billions of years, until the Earth exploded. Then he might just float lifelessly in space as his blood boiled, until the end of days. _

_He heaved painfully, desperately, for another breath that would never come—_

Jack flew upright in bed, immediately realizing he was still in his apartment and the incident had been over weeks ago. Painfully, he slapped at his chest repeatedly to get himself started breathing again—in his dream his body had forgotten to, thinking that he was still suffocating.

Finally, he gasped for breath, leaning back against the pillows, feeling far more exhausted than he had when he'd gone to bed.

A sharp, high-pitched bark resounded on his right and he practically leaped in the air, screaming like somebody a fraction of his age before he caught sight of the dark, dog-shaped silhouette.

A few more gasps, and he was able to shout again. "I hate you!" he screamed at it, throwing a pillow at it so it would jump off the bed again. "You don't even know how much I hate you right now!"

The dog whined, jumping down and running out of the room.

Jack collapsed into the tangled mess of sheets and blankets he'd made in his sleep. He was trembling, ever so slightly. He had that nightmare almost every night now, but this had been the most vivid by far. It was the first time he'd actually stopped breathing in his sleep, though when he'd been unconscious right after his rescue the team had told him they had to force his breathing.

Fighting the urge to fear sleeping a second time, he grabbed at whatever blankets were the closest and pulled them around him, tucking his injured arm back under the pillow he hadn't thrown. That dratted dog had scared the daylights out of him. He knew he should get up and shut the door so it wouldn't come back in his room again, but his eyelids closed in spite of himself and he drifted off.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Fortunately, the nightmares didn't return and he slept soundly the rest of the night.

At 7, he awoke to the sound of his alarm going off and blearily turned it off, rolling back over as he realized he could sleep in today, since going to work was out of the question.

A while later, he became vaguely aware of a tingling feeling on his right hand, which was hanging off the side of his bed. Slowly coming awake, he rolled over, using the hand to rub along the muscles of his face as he gradually woke up.

Suddenly, he realized his entire face and hand were now covered in sticky, dog-smelling saliva. "Oh…" he groaned, sitting up with a horrified look, "Oh, now that's disgusting! Bad dog! Oh, I can't believe I did that!" he moaned, climbing out of bed and disgustedly scrubbed off the goop from his face in the sink.

Boy, did it smell! "Come here!" he shouted suddenly, motioning to the dog, who was still happily wandering through his bedroom, its long pink tongue dangling out of its mouth. "In the bathtub! You need a _wash!_"

Happily, it strutted up to him, looking up at him with an anticipating expression.

Jack found it totally bizarre that a dog could possibly look this overjoyed. He'd been under the impression that most dogs didn't like being washed.

A few minutes later, he found that he hadn't been wrong.

He'd run some water in the bottom of the tub, just enough to scoop over the dog's thick, short brown-and-white fur with a massive amount of shampoo. But the second he turned away to get a towel for his sweating face, out the dog jumped!

"What the—dog! Come back here!" he ran back up, grabbing it before it ran out the door. He scooped up the wet, soapy, squirming, incredibly stinky body, setting it back down with a plop! Into the water.

It let out what had to have been the most pitiful whine Jack had ever heard in his 132 years. He couldn't help but laugh. "You big scary dog, afraid of nothing but a little soapy water, eh?" he chuckled, rubbing the shampoo in further. "You are seriously one of the dumbest creatures I have ever encountered." This time, however, he said it more affectionately than spitefully.

He wiped his face off, which was dripping from the condensation, and reached for more shampoo. "Uh-uh," he warned, keeping a tight hold of the dog's front leg as he did so. "No more jumping out. You see all those puddles on the floor? Those are there because _you_ are afraid of the same water you drink."

A slight shift to his right, however, reminded him painfully that the dog he was dealing with was still smart enough to leave a couple of holes in his leg after he'd made the mistake of trying to kick it off the porch.

Out of nowhere, the dog suddenly bent over on its hind legs, and shook its head back and forth so fast a rain of soapy droplets came hurtling off of its fur, nearly soaking Jack's T-shirt. "Oh, no, no, no, you didn't tell me you could do that!" he admonished it, grimacing as he examined his shirt. He was going to have to take another shower after he was done with this animal.

The dog, being smart as he was, took instant advantage of the moment and leaped from the water once again, this time racing past Jack's frantically reaching arms, out the door, into the hallway, and 'round to the kitchen.

Knowing he was helpless, Jack fell back against the wall, laughing uncontrollably. "You stupid dog!" he shouted again, this time through his laughs. "You haven't won this one yet!"

He jumped to his feet, hobbling out of the bathroom and only just now realizing he was going to have to catch this dog with only one good hand and one good foot. Preferably, without banging his head again. And so the chase began.

He ran around the counter into the kitchen, as the dog scrambled on its four wet, dripping legs away on the slippery linoleum, getting closer but having to watch his own step to avoid slipping on the puddles that were left behind. Around the coffee table, behind the couch, where Jack didn't fit, back through the even wetter kitchen until finally, he thought he had the dog cornered in the bedroom.

Grinning evilly, he crept up toward it with his arms outstretched, stepping closer as the dog shrank back into the corner between the edge of the bed and Jack's nightstand. He lunged forward to grab it, and—

The dog dashed under the bed, crawling all the way under and popping out, covered in wet, fluffy dust balls clinging to its fur. "Oh, now you've made it worse!" Jack groaned, grinning in spite of himself as he made a mad dash to reach the door first. The dog, however won.

Back around the couch, the coffee table, the kitchen, all over again, except this time Jack was starting to notice that his apartment was getting a little more damp than it should be. "All right, time to end this, pal," his eyes flashed, and he jumped to one side, making the dog think he was going one way, then pounced on top of him in the other direction, tackling the little ball of fuzz and dust and shampoo and water and hauling him up close to his chest.

The dog barked, as if it were trying to protest, squirming to get free, but he didn't let go until they were back in the bathroom, with the door finally shut squarely behind them.

Jack was starting to get hungry, and he knew he needed to call Tosh, so he hurried with the remainder of the dog's bath, basically pinning it to the tub the whole time. Eventually, he gave up on staying dry and climbed all the way in, sitting down in the three inches of water, pajamas and all.

The dog kept trying to lick his face. "Oh, you know you wanna lick my face," he teased it, pretending he didn't sound like a new father baby-talking his kid. "That's right, you know you do! You wanna lick your doggy germs all over me so I'll smell just as bad as you do! Although," he added, wrinkling up his nose, "Truth be known, I probably already do. You think?"

As if in reply, the dog barked once. Jack couldn't help but laugh.

Remembering that dogs were supposed to have their teeth brushed, too, he pulled out an old one of his and pried the dog's mouth open far enough that he could scrub at the large, pointed canines. "My, what big jaws you have, Grandmother," he joked, still talking to the dog as if it could understand him. He didn't really know why he was having this conversation; he just felt like it. "'The better to eat you with, my dear!' That's what you're supposed to say. And I would know, because I have witness firsthand the power of your magnificent jaws in action. You'd make somebody a good guard dog, I bet."

Absentmindedly, he rubbed at his sore leg and noticed the bleeding had stopped completely. Relieved, he unwound the bandage. The dog tried to sniff it as he reached over a giant puddle on the floor to toss it in the trash. "No, Jaws," he joked, tapping it lightly on the snout before absentmindedly taking the toothbrush and sticking it in his own mouth.

Immediately realizing what he had done, he spat it out again and stared at it in shock and horror. "Oh, that is just nasty! Why do I always do things like that?!" he got to his feet as the dog scrambled off, hobbling to the sink and rinsing his mouth out so many times he could hardly feel his face.

He stuck his tongue out at himself in the mirror, before realizing the door was open. Fortunately, he'd already toweled the dog (though not himself, just yet) and mopped up most of the water on the floor with pretty much every towel he owned.

That was when he heard the phone ringing. "Oh, no. Tosh!" Jack groaned loudly, rushing out and ignoring the fact that his pajamas were still sopping wet. Snapping his fingers as best he could when they were wet and shriveled, he stopped and took a deep, scary breath before answering. "Hello?"

"Hi," came Tosh's somewhat intimidated-sounding voice. He couldn't really blame her, after yesterday. "Um, where are you?"

"Tosh, I am really, really sorry about yesterday," he said in a breath, "and—I'm also sorry that I didn't call you this morning; you see there's been a—"

As if on cue, the dog started barking furiously at something outside the window, drowning out his voice.

"Jaws!" Jack hissed, heading over to the handset, "Jaws, shut up! I'm on the phone!"

"Is that a dog?" Tosh's voice suddenly piqued with interest. She sounded pleased.

"What? Oh, um—no—I mean, yes. I'm having a bit of a—"

"I didn't know you had a dog!" she gushed, with a tiny squeal of delight.

"I don't have a dog!" he protested. "I got bit by a dog, and I kept it to make sure it didn't have rabies—shut up already!" the last bit being directed back at Jaws. "Sorry," he panted, switching to the receiver, "That was—ah—that was Jaws. I've had a dog incident at my apartment. It's a really long story. Tosh, but I DON'T have a dog;" he stopped suddenly, noting the additional voices he could now hear in the background on HER end, "did you have me on speakerphone, yesterday?"

Her voice held a very knowing tone. "Mmm-Hmm," she said slowly.

A knot started forming in his stomach. "Do—you have me on speakerphone—now?"

"Mmm-Hmm!" she answered again.

"Oh my gosh," he mumbled, leaning back against the kitchen cabinets. "Guys, I am so sorry—I didn't mean a single word of what I said, and I know that doesn't make up for it—I really am sorry. I really am. All of you; especially Tosh, 'cause I thought I was just speaking to her, but all of you. I'm sorry."

"Well," he heard Ianto's voice on the other end, "it took Owen two hours of working time to fix the phone after I broke it, but other than that, I don't think any of us are too scarred."

Soft laughter in the background made Jack smile just a tiny bit.

"It's all right, Jack," Tosh assured him. "But seriously, where are you?"

"Yeah," he heard Gwen say, "It's after nine, pal!"

Jack swallowed hard, a bit embarrassed. "Weeeelll," he drew out the word slowly, glancing around his currently disastrous-looking apartment, "You know I mentioned the whole dog incident, but actually, there have been several incidents—nothing too terrible, but um—let's just say I'm currently at war with my coffee table, the staircase, the bathtub, and my own pajamas—at the moment. I meant to call in—sorry for that, too. I, um—I'm taking another day off, I guess. It's a long story. What are you guys up to today?"

"Um," Tosh sighed on the other end, but then Gwen piped up.

"Nothin' much, just a probable car chase later this afternoon…" her voice trailed off as Jaws started barking again in the background. "Where DID that dog come from?" she asked, sounding bewildered and annoyed at being interrupted.

"Wish I knew," Jack shrugged, although he knew they couldn't see him. "I hope you guys are all right and everything, with me being gone for so long…"

Immediately he was pelted with a chorus of "Not at all!"'s and "Take your time, Jack, you need it!"'s and No, it's all good!"'s.

"Whoah, whoah, all right, guys! Nice to know I'm never needed," he joked.

"Very funny. We're actually bored to tears with no one to pick on," Owen informed him.

"Ha ha. See you guys tomorrow," he rolled his eyes, hanging up the phone.

Once that was out of the way, he hurriedly scrambled some eggs, hesitating only slightly before giving the dog some on a plate on the floor. "Total waste of food," he grumbled to himself, "Although—" he stopped and shrugged, taking a bite of his own, "not like I have anyone else to share it with."

He finished his eggs, but by that time, in his wet pajamas, he found himself shivering and his fractured wrist ached more because of the cold.

Turning to face the dog, he realized suddenly that he probably should take it outside about now.

He looked down at his pajamas, still dripping onto the linoleum, and decided to clean up afterwards and just change clothes for now.

Since it was still his day off, he went rummaging through his drawers and decided that he'd just put on another pair of pajamas. After all, what he wore as pajamas was better than what most people wore to Wal-Mart anyway, so it should be suitable for a walk in the park, right?

Pretending it wasn't terrible fashion sense and knowing he would never pick up a date in this way, he pulled on his World War II coat overtop of the T-shirt and found a piece of paracord that he could use as a dog leash.

When he came out of his bedroom, smiling and expecting to tie on the leash and head out, he found an unwelcome surprise.

He might've been a tad too late.

The dog looked up at him with an expression of mixed guilt and expectancy that he didn't have the heart to yell at it, even though there was a nice, steaming brown pile on his carpet in a very conspicuous area.

Frowning at it, he simply sidestepped it and looped the paracord around the dog's neck, tying an adjustable knot that he was sure Jaws couldn't get away from.

"Come on, Jaws, you big oaf," he grumbled, walking the obedient dog to the front door. He stopped before opening it, realizing something. "I haven't named you, just so you know," he shook his finger in its face. "'Jaws' is not your name. It's your title, so I don't have to call you 'dog' all the time. Okay?"

Jaws practically smiled up at him in agreement, mouth open and panting happily as he waited to go outside.

Jack rolled his eyes, opening the door.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Jaws, as it turned out, loved to run around on the green patch adjacent to the complex. It was the area where several other residents liked to walk their dogs, since fortunately, Ms. Ganopy was a pretty lenient landlady and allowed pets of all kinds.

Jack had mostly chosen her flat to rent because of the sometimes unpredictable experiments that somehow ended up coming home from work with him, but he was pretty relieved that he didn't have to worry about losing his apartment due to the giant puddles he still had yet to clean up.

There were several other dogs outside at the same time Jack took Jaws out, and he made it his goal to ensure there was a safe distance between the other resident's and his own energetic mutt. Since it was during working hours, the other dogs currently exploring the tall, green grass all belonged to three old, ladies and were all much smaller than Jaws was.

After only a few minutes, Jack was exhausted with trying to keep Jaws in control and proceeded to nearly drag the dog back up to the apartment.

Once there, fortunately, Jaws regained his dog-happiness almost immediately after Jack let him off the paracord.

He spent the rest of the morning cleaning up the mess his apartment had become in the last twelve hours while Jaws ran around in circles, barked at everything he could see out the window, and investigating every single thing Jack did.

By 12 o'clock, everything was done, but Jack was too tired to make anything for lunch. He limped over to the couch and sat down, meaning just to close his eyes for a second, but found himself drifting off instead.

A paw rested gently on his stomach woke him half an hour later, and he found himself shivering. He couldn't remember what the dream was, but it hadn't been a good one.

Blinking a few times, it started to come back to him.

_Laughing. _

_Laughing that didn't stop, laughing in his face, that face that shouldn't be laughing was laughing at HIM. _

_A face that had laughed in his own before, when he'd been tied to a pole and shot down for someone's amusement, and grabbed his worst enemy subconsciously as he woke up. _

_He'd spit in his face, and it had stopped laughing. _

_But this time, the laughing. Never. Ended._

The Master. He'd dreamed of the Master.

Strange, since he hadn't dreamed that before.

Blearily, he rolled his head over to examine the dog to his right more closely.

It was strange; Jaws had woken him up last night when he'd had a nightmare. Now he'd done the same thing twice.

Granted, the dog had also just about given him a heart attack at 3 A.M., but there was something weird about him. It was almost as if he knew when Jack was dreaming.

Groggily, he stood up from the couch and went to make a sandwich, but all he could find was peanut butter, so he heated up some soup as well. Jaws waited expectantly on the floor, following Jack's every move as he broke off bits of peanut butter bread and threw them down.

He smiled a tiny bit as he watched the excitable dog gobble them up, one by one. Listlessly, he realized he was just stirring his soup, rather than eating it, and he eventually just set that on the ground for Jaws as well.

The dog tested it with his big, wet, black nose and began to gurgle noisily as he slurped at the broth and noodles, spilling drops of it on the floor in his haste to gobble it down.

Sighing, Jack went to get a phonebook, slowly dialing the number for animal control.

He'd put it off long enough.

Jaws might was well have the soup, since it would probably be the last cooked meal he'd ever eat.

As he hit the last button, however, an unexpected thing happened.

The phone slipped from his hands and clattered to the floor.

"Hello?" came the voice from the receiving end. "This is Animal Control, how may we help you?"

Jack barely heard the voice, staring straight ahead for half a second before collapsing to the floor next to Jaws.

He hit the ground with a hard _THUD_, and everything went black.

When he woke, he had trouble focusing for a second. He was lying on his back, in the middle of the kitchen, with the phone lying on one side of him and a plate and cup of soup on the other. Standing with his front paws on Jack's chest, hind paws on his stomach, busily licking at his face, was none other than Jaws himself.

Jack groaned, wanting to get up but afraid the room might sway with him if he did. He stared blankly up at the dog's wide mouth, which was still caressing his face with the rough pink tongue even though he was already awake. His head ached like it had the day before when he'd woken up in the hospital.

"You have—really—big jaws, you know that?" he muttered absently. "I think that was a good name for you." His own voice sounded weak, even to him.

Hearing him talk, Jaws seemed to finally get the message that Jack was finally awake, and stopped to lick up some saliva from his own face before stepping off of him.

Feeling every bit his 132 years, Jack slowly got to his feet, stopping to bend down just for a moment and pat Jaws a couple of times on the head. "Good dog," he whispered tiredly.

He limped to the couch and lay down, not protesting when Jaws climbed up beside him and curled up in a warm little ball next to his stomach. Jack draped one arm over the dog's soft fur, stroking it gently until he fell asleep once more.


	7. Chapter 7

**A big thank you to everyone who has read, followed, and favorite so far and to my reviewer as well! You guys are awesome and I hope you enjoy the chapter. **

Chapter 7

Jack woke up feeling infinitely better than before.

Jaws lifted his head next to him and wagged his tail expectantly, and Jack started laughing when he realized the dog really had stayed next to him the whole time. "You really are a good dog, you know that?" he smiled, stroking Jaws' fur and scratching a little behind his ears. Jaws leaned into it, rolling over on his back and falling right off the couch.

He laughed heartily as the dog yelped in surprise, then scrambled to his feet again and started barking at him, as if to say, _"Come on! Let's do something!"_

Jack ran to get the paracord leash, fastening around the dog's neck once more and leading him outside. The two raced each other down the stairs, Jack forgetting about his injured leg as they ran out to the green.

Seeing the tall grass, Jack shook his head. "There's a REAL dog park just around the corner, buddy. Come one, let's go there!"

They walked part of the way and ran part of the way, Jack trying to avoid getting tangled in the least as Jaws attempted to pull him on faster and zigzagged back and forth across the sidewalk, investigating patches of weeds, mailboxes, dead bugs, and everything else he could find with his big, wet nose.

Finally, when they entered the fenced-in area, he removed the leash and let Jaws run around chasing whatever his heart desired.

Jack stretched his back out and sighed, taking a deep breath of the cool, nearly-winter air. It had been awhile since he'd been outside doing nothing but just relaxing. His team had several unnamed members who were particularly shy of the cold, and therefore during downtime they usually stayed indoors by this time of year.

He grinned, watching as Jaws ran around and sniffed at all the other dogs, barking at all the other owners and people out for a walk. "C'mere, Jaws!" he called finally, clapping his hands and smiling in spite of himself as the dog responded it his new name and came bounding in his direction, saliva dripping from his long pink tongue.

When he got to him, Jaws jumped up on his hind legs, landing his forepaws in Jack's hands for a high-five, then stayed there for a moment before running off again.

Apparently, he had found something interesting over in a corner near the fence. Jack hoped he wasn't trying to dig underneath it.

"Whatcha got there, Jaws? You just got a bath this morning—can't have you getting muddy again," he told him, strolling over to the site where the dog was eagerly tearing into the ground.

A few seconds later, his head came shooting up from the ground with the addition of a yellow rubber tennis ball in his mouth; covered in dirt, but still intact enough to be recognizable. "Aww, did you find a toy?" Jack grinned. "Well, nobody asked me, but I doubt its original owner will still want it."

Patting over to where Jack was standing, Jaws opened his mouth, dropping the wet, muddy tennis ball at the captain's feet. Jack grimaced slightly, but he bent to pick it up and swung it over his head, throwing it to the other end of the fenced area.

Immediately, Jaws took off at a run toward the flying ball, scrambling over the turf for a few seconds as his new toy bounced unpredictably a few times and finally caught it in his mouth. He came running back, tail wagging at a furiously happy rate.

Jack couldn't help but enjoy how this dog seemed to get so much enjoyment out of a simple little ball. Obligingly, he picked it up again, throwing it a second time, and then a few more times before deciding it was time to leave.

The near-winter sky was getting pinkish as the two entered the apartment together, both getting hungry after the exciting events of the day. "Alright mutt," Jack grinned affectionately at Jaws, kneeling down to play with his floppy ears after he shut the front door, "I think we've come to the agreement that you can stay. So how 'bout we have a celebration dinner, huh?"

The thought _"What if someone comes looking for him?" _crossed his mind briefly, but he decided to ignore it for now as it caused an unexpected pang in his heart when he considered it.

Jaws felt like _his_—he'd been his today—saved him, even, some could argue. He just WAS his now. How could it be any other way?

"_And it's not like he's a fancy thoroughbred or something,"_ he added to his own thoughts, grabbing some uncooked spaghetti from a higher shelf and dumping an unmeasured amount in a pan.

He watched the barely coffee-table-height dog as it ran around the apartment again, looking out all the windows as if the view was the most fascinating thing it had ever seen.

Surely nobody would come looking for a random mutt, with red-brown fur that had big white patches, and droopy brown eyes, and floppy, ever-so-soft triangle ears, and a long pink tongue that made him look like he was smiling every time it hung open; and seriously, had the cutest expressions in the world—

Oh, no! Never.

He decided to stop thinking about it, and just thought very hard about cooking the spaghetti and meatballs.

He and Jaws were just settling down to big bowls of it together when the phone rang. Trying to swallow a big mouthful of noodles, Jack snapped his fingers to answer it and Jaws, his snout covered in tomato sauce, barked a cheerful 'hello' to whoever was on the other end.

"Jack," came Gwen's voice, sounding especially tense, "We have a problem."

He swallowed hard, frowning with concern. "What kind of problem, Gorgeous?"

"There's been a strange report of a 'thing' that escaped from Blackgate prison. It sounds like a hoax, except that we've witness firsthand Naismith corporations trying to catch this 'thing', and the fact that the Doctor's on Earth and the Tardis is in this location makes it more serious," she explained quickly, spitting the facts with a no-nonsense ease.

"Do we have any idea where this 'thing's at?" he questioned, getting up and pulling on his coat again, preparing to head out to deal with the emergency.

"Y—yeah, we do," Gwen stuttered; possibly for the first time Jack had ever heard her do that. "Jack—" she hesitated, "—we think he's right outside your apartment!"

Jack started to sprint for his bedroom, where he kept his sonic blaster, when a heavy pounding at his door made him stop in his tracks. "Yea, I think he just showed up," he told her nervously, not sure whether or not he should answer.

"We're on our way," she responded quickly.

"Hold on, Gwen. Why would whatever-it-is come _here_?"

Jaws started growling at the door, stepping closer to it one paw at a time. Jack stepped in front of him, not wanting him to be killed the second it opened.

Suddenly, with a sharp "BANG!" the creature smashed the door's hinges. The wooden rectangle fell inward in one solid piece, revealing a face Jack thought he'd never see again.

"You!" his eyes flew open with shock.

The man in the door was in a hooded sweatshirt, his hair plastered unkempt against his forehead and a wild look in his eyes. He grinned broadly, seeing Jack. "Oh, I knew I'd find you here," he growled menacingly. "I. Am. So. _Hungry_!"


	8. Chapter 8

**Only one chapter left after this! **

**Soon I will be replacing the old chapters with highly revised ones, unless I change my mind because honestly, I am a terrible editor. :p So let me know in the reviews section what y'all think I should keep, add, or remove! The story line will remain the same, but I'm considering some serious dialogue overhaul to show everyone more in-character. Anyone in particular who seems out-of-whack? Let me know! **

**Thanks! **

**~Marina**

Chapter 8

"Jack?" Gwen's voice was muffled over the speaker from underneath the Master's hooded sweatshirt, where Jack was pinned down hard and struggling to get out. "Jack! What's going on?"

Heaving against the Time Lord's ribs, Jack shoved him off just long enough to shout, "Don't come here!" before he spun around and pinned him to the ground again with a frightening level of ease. Jack had trained in all sorts of hand-to-hand combat forms, but somehow the Master held him back without even straining.

Seeing he had won in a matter of seconds, the Time Lord pulled a broad smile as he grabbed Jack's collar and lifted the captain to his feet with an iron-clawed hand wrapped around his throat like a vice, and shoved him against a wall. Jack kicked at his midsection as hard as he could, struggling to breathe as he tried to break free, but the hooded madman, though smaller by several inches, wasn't even breaking a sweat.

Jaws growled with a ferocity Jack hadn't heard from him before, lunging at the Time Lord's leg and sinking his teeth into his upper thigh. Eyes wide, Jack could only watch helplessly as the Master stared down at the dog, a look of annoyance on his face, and shook him off, causing him to fly through the air and land with a pitiful whine several meters away.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Jack hammered at the Master's elbow with his forearm, attempting to break it, and was rewarded with a sharp backhanded fist slamming into his jaw.

With a surprised cry, he fell to the ground, struggling to breathe as the muscles in his neck rebounded to their usual shape, allowing him another breath.

"_How can he possibly be so strong?!"_

His heart hammered in his chest. Time Lords may have certain biological advantages, but this was unnatural. The Doctor hadn't been this strong. Nowhere near it.

Before he had a chance to totally recover, he was on him again, dragging him up by his coat, the old, precious fabric ripping in his hands as he hauled Jack to his feet. "How did you come back?" Jack demanded, stifling a cough as he strained to pull the Master's hands from his coat. "I saw you die! You died in the Doctor's arms and he burned your body!"

The Master wrinkled up his nose spitefully, as if deciding whether answering was worth his time or not, then changed as a broad grin spread across his dirt-streaked face. "Oh, I don't know," he replied in a low voice, his face so close to Jack's the captain could feel, smell his breath. It smelled like something had died in his mouth—rancid, like rotting meat. "I suppose I'm just too much like you!"

He reached over and grabbed Jack's arm forcefully, so hard he could feel it ready to be pulled from its socket. "I keep. Coming. Back!"

He threw his head back and laughed maniacally, even more so than he had during the Year that Never Was. Jack's palm flew toward the Master's hair and he yanked his head back, seeing the wild look in his eyes. Something was different from the Master he'd known before. Something had changed—he'd come back, but he'd also done the impossible. There had to be consequences to his second life as well as the obvious strength advantages.

Sure enough, as he laughed, the sound changed from that of a man to a fierce growling and his skin flashed briefly, revealing the bare skeleton underneath. Jack gasped, but the Master seemed unbothered by the display of his ebbing life.

And he hadn't lost his impossible strength whatsoever.

Jaws had, by this time, gotten to his feet and was bravely charging the Time Lord a second time, but this time the Master made a fist, rubbing his fingers together, faster and faster, hotter and hotter, until sparks literally flew from his hand and he extended it toward the dog, shooting out a fearsome bolt of electricity.

"Jaws!" Jack roared, but it was too late. His dog lay on the ground, dead or asleep, he didn't know. His head whipped around to face the Master's evil grinning again. "Where did you learn to do that?!" he shouted, but the only answer was a sharp tug on his shoulder. Suddenly his flesh filled with a searing pain and he felt blood begin to pour down his side.

Jack screamed, and thankfully remembered no more.

Seconds later, he sat up with a sharp gasp, knowing he had just died being ripped apart by the Master and come to life again. His knees went weak at the thought, but he forced himself to recover quickly. Seeing the Time Lord turning to grab Jaws and no doubt perform the same action on his all-too-mortal dog, he lunged for his shoulders and wrapped his forearm around the other man's neck, struggling with all his might to set in a choke hold. "Gwen?!" he shouted toward the telephone, gasping from the effort. "Gwen, tell me you're still there!"

"Jack, it's me," Owen's deep voice came over the phone. "What's going on?"

"Guys," he winced as he swallowed the last inch of his pride, "You're gonna think I'm crazy for saying this, but—we need to call in UNIT."

"UNIT?!" Owen's voice came back, disbelieving.

"You heard me!" he shouted at the phone, as the Master bent over, flipping Jack up over his head and onto the floor in front of him. He jumped back up, wincing painfully as he did so. "Only they've got the manpower to deal with the Master!" he continued to reason with her. "He's come back to life and he's just too strong!" _"Here it comes again,"_ he thought, seeing the sharp fingernails, currently bloody from their last feeding, curving toward his side.

This time, he didn't lose consciousness nearly as fast.

As he came back, the pain shattered in an agonizing wrench as a final scream ripped its way from Jack's throat, and he ran toward the Master again, determined to keep him away from Jaws, no matter what the cost. He found that he was crying, and choking on his own tears as he did so, still in emotional pain from the last few moments although his body was intact once again.

"Jack," came Tosh's worried voice, trembling over the phone, "Jack, we can't let him hurt you!"

"Just stay away!" he screamed at her, startled to hear how raw his own voice sounded. "Get UNIT, now! There's nothing you guys can do!"

He couldn't let anything happen to them. Not after all they'd done to take care of him.

Tackling the Time Lord and finally bringing him to the floor, he saw out of the corner of his eye that Jaws had begun to stir. He needed to get back into his bedroom and get his blaster, but he couldn't leave the dog here—he'd be reduced to bones in seconds.

The Master noticed his splint as the two of them wrestled in a sweaty pile for the upper hand, and grabbing it, he wrenched Jack's wrist to the side, ignoring his scream of pain as it audibly snapped in two. Jack fell back to the floor, gasping, holding his wrist tenderly, knowing it was going to happen again. He was going to be eaten alive, for the third time.

He could feel the fear like an animal inside him as he swung his fist at the Master's jaw, only to feel it casually batted aside. Tears squeezed between his eyelids and he didn't care. He babbled in front of him like a frightened child. "You can't take Jaws. I won't let you. I can't let you hurt him—just leave him alone!" Turning his head to the side, he heaved as his breath caught in his throat and retched all over the carpet. The pain was just too much for even him to take.

"Awww," he heard the Master reply, in a mocking tone. "That's adorable! The big, bad, immortal freak is afraid for his little bitty puppy dog?" Snarling, he leaped forward again, pinning the immortal to the ground once more and causing him to cry out as his broken wrist jostled against the ground. "I'm so sorry," the Master said, a small amount of genuine compassion in his voice, "But I just can't do that. I'm hungry enough to eat BOTH of you!"

He grabbed Jaws by the neck with one hand, digging his fingernails into the dog's flesh and causing him to go limp once more.

"No!" Jack screamed, but he was still pinned helplessly to the floor. In a fit of rage, he writhed out from beneath the Master's knees, tackling him again from the front.

Suddenly, a sharp, electric whine came from behind them. "Back away, NOW!" shouted Ianto's voice, as he leveled the barrel of his electronic gun at the Master's unruly blond head.

Jack gasped. His team couldn't have come here! They'd all be torn to pieces!

The Master frowned deeply.

Raising his hand, his fingers sparked electricity a second time, and he pressed it against Jack's stomach, causing arcs of voltage to pulse like a fire through his nervous system.

Jack hit the ground, hard, barely seeing straight as Ianto began to fire, missing the Time Lord by mere inches as the Time Lord released a limp Jaws to fall to the floor and leaped up, smashing through the window with his bare fists and jumping out.

Additional gunshots from outside rung faintly in Jack's ears as he blacked out from the pain.

Seconds later, he was wrenched violently back to life again in a kaleidoscope of colors flashing across his vision. He found himself clinging to both Ianto and Gwen, who were both holding just as tightly to him as he was as he sat up forcefully. He was cold, so, so cold; it was freezing and he shook in their arms, hazily making out what was going on around him and seeing Jaws, still lying motionless on the carpet next to his coffee table where the Master had dropped him.

Numbly pushing both of them off, he crawled on his hands and knees toward the furry mass, stopping only when he felt somebody drape a blanket over his shoulders and gently pull him back.

His head cleared a little in the car on the way back to Torchwood.

Ianto drove; Gwen draped an arm over Jack's shoulders in the back seat, keeping the blanket over him as he slowly started shaking less and less. Jaws was also wrapped up in a smaller blanket, lying on the seat. Nervously, he brought his eyes to meet Gwen's. "Is he alive?" he croaked, through a dry throat.

She handed him a water bottle, already opened, and he sucked down half of it immediately. "The dog'll be fine, Boss," she assured him, patting his knee gently. "Just relax. UNIT's out there chasing down the Master—he'll need a Tardis, a superteleport, and a whole lotta luck if he wants any chance of getting away."

Jack looked away, gazing listlessly out the window, not wanting to think about any of it.

"Boss," Gwen piped up again, in that voice that meant, in a nice way, that he was about to be interrogated, "What'd he do to you? All of it? He tore your clothes to shreds; there was blood everywhere when we came in. What on Earth did he want?"

Jack's chest convulsed in a single, humorless laugh. "He ate me," he said, in a voice that was far too small for him. Gwen's comment about the clothes reminded him that his favorite coat, too, had been ripped in pieces and probably lay scattered over the flat. So much for the precious reminder of the Doctor and Rose.

"What?!" Ianto's voice came from the front, reacting to what he'd said.

Gwen's eyes went wide with horror.

In spite of trying not to think about it, Jack started shaking again, and his friends apparently decided not to ask him any more for the time being. Gwen simply reached up and tucked the blankets around him more tightly as they pulled up near the Hub.


	9. Chapter 9

**Final Chapter! I really hope you guys like it. I hate begging for reviews, but I really do need some because I have trouble with editing. What needs to change? What do y'all like? Oh, and there will be other Jack stories coming, too. I have two that are cooking in my brain: Torchwood meeting up with the Doctor and Rose in 'Fear Her' and a story where the Doctor finds Jack's long lost brother and featuring teenaged Jack as well as Torchwood Jack. So follow me as an author for more!**

**Thank you guys for reading. **

**~Marina**

Chapter 9

Ianto stood, leaning against the doorway, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand as he watched the scene in the medical lab with a deep frown. Jack's new mutt, apparently called 'Jaws' (which in any other circumstances he would've thought was hilarious), was stretched out in the middle of the bed Jack himself had spent several days in after they'd dissolved the concrete out of him.

Jack, himself, dressed in a change of clothes Tosh had grabbed for him from the flat when doing an investigation, had been sitting next to the bed when he'd fallen asleep, his upper body lying flat against the thin, white comforter as his left arm rested off to the side in a scan-formed cast and his right lay next to the dog's hind quarters, which he'd been stroking absentmindedly before drifting off to sleep.

Without moving, he could see out of the corner of his eye that Gwen had joined him in the doorway. "He cried himself to sleep," Ianto told her, in a disbelieving tone as he observed the faint traces of tears around Jack's closed eyelids. Shaking his head, he stood up a little straighter as he spoke. "What are we going to do with him?"

Gwen was frowning hard, staring at the captain and his unconscious dog as well. She sniffed, sticking her hands deep in the pockets of her black skinny jeans. "I'll take care of him," she reassured Ianto, nodding to him that he could leave.

Sighing, she went to get a chair for herself, and awkwardly banged it into the wall and doorframe as she struggled to get it inside. She wasn't known around Torchwood for being too quiet when moving things around.

Jack stirred at the noise, slowly blinking and sitting up as she set the chair down beside his, opening it up and taking a seat. Noticing the moisture around his eyes, he hastily rubbed it away and sniffed, giving Gwen a watery smile. "Look at me," he remarked. "Crying over a dog. What the heck's gone wrong with me?"

Gwen smiled a tiny bit, scooting her chair closer to his. "One would think you didn't have any other friends," she half-teased, half-prodded.

"Yeah," he chuckled softly, reaching up to stroke Jaws' fur gently, in hopes of waking him up. "I'm sorry," he told her. "I've been a jerk to you guys. You really take care of me—always have."

"What else is family for?"

He stopped, eyes hovering over her face for a second, before looking away, unnerved.

"Look, I'm not gonna lie to you," she continued frankly, piquing his interest. "Owen, Tosh, Ianto and I wouldn't know a thing about running around chasing aliens and working with them in the lab if it weren't for you. We're just a bunch of idiots; we live for less than a hundred years and then we die; we hate being told what to do but we do it anyway because we don't have a choice. We're just tiny parts of your life, Boss."

He shrugged. "Why are you saying this?"

"'Cause even so, it matters to us a whole lot that you're safe, and that you're happy," she replied seriously, her face square to his as she looked him directly in the eye.

He turned away and sighed.

"Tosh found some brain scans in your flat," Gwen added, avoiding his gaze. "I'm not gonna say anything about them until you do."

Slightly annoyed, but only slightly, Jack sat back in his chair and tried to think of what to say to her. He knew she really did care about him, as did the whole team, but having something wrong with his brain was not something he wanted to think about.

"Fun little pictures I picked up at the hospital," he joked, at last. "They say a lot about me, don't you think? Maybe I should post them on Facebook!"

She laughed. "You haven't posted anything on Facebook in forever! Which is very strange for you," she added with a smile. "What happened to all those 4-in-the-morning posts on 'stupidest dating habits of 2008?' I've missed waking up for those!" she added sarcastically.

"It was 4 in the morning; I had to keep things interesting somehow!" he replied, grinning _almost_ as brightly as he normally did.

They sat in silence for a moment, before Gwen changed the subject.

"Let's see," she speculated, tilting her chair back, causing it to rock dangerously backwards. "Worst-case-scenario."

He raised his eyebrows. "For what?"

She spoke slowly, letting the words roll off her tongue one by one. "If you, say, went to see a psychiatrist."

"Oh, yes, of course, let's see," Jack rolled his eyes, leaning back in his chair as well. He could play this game pretty well. "I walk into the office. Somebody hands me paperwork, obviously, since I love the glow of a white sheet of paper that reflects my image, and it reads: state your name, age, and date of birth. Name—that's easy enough."

"As long as you don't get carried away and write 'Han Solo' or something stupid," Gwen butted in playfully.

"True," Jack chuckled. "Age: 132 and looking good, if I may say so—Date of birth? I don't even remember exactly, but it was in 5,067 A.D. at least. In other words, I won't be born for a while."

"But when's your birthday? Tosh was gonna make you a cake!"

"I'm just kidding; I know it, but the dating systems are all changed up from what they are in the future…"

"Just a guess."

"March 13'th."

She pulled a pen from her pocket and wrote the date as a note on her forearm, and Jack sniggered at the gesture.

"So anyway," he continued, "as I was saying, I go in the actual office, sit me down on the sofa, maybe a massage—nice massage, you know, to help me relax and tell my life story since I'm terrible at talking…"

Gwen snorted, trying to contain her laughter. "That's some up-scale psychiatrist you're planning on going to!"

"I have connections, Cooper!" he swatted at her arm in a teasing manner. "So they sit me down, pull down their nerdy glasses over their noses, like a certain Doctor I happen to be friends with except not nearly as interesting—" he began to mime the predicted actions of the imaginary psychiatrists— "and take a look at my scans, and they'll say, 'So, Mr. Harkness, we see you happen to have some very—unique—results here. The proportionate size of your brain compared to the average human seems to be disturbingly large! We'll have to transfer you to a specialist on abnormal levels of intelligence.'"

Beside him, Gwen was already shaking with laughter, and before long as he continued, he found that he was laughing himself.

"So then!" he struggled to get a breath in between laughs, "They take me to the specialist! And she says, 'Mr. Harkness, could you relay the series of events that led up to this disturbing anomaly?'" he faked a high-pitched, nasally voice for the specialist. "'Sure, sure'," he continued in his own voice, "You see, I was only chasing a deadly stream of blood-sucking, 2-dimensional apes through a playground when I accidently fell into this sidewalk my arch-enemy was building specifically to trap milking cows from the future, and I happen to be immortal, so I got stuck in it but managed to survive the ordeal before my team found me. Then several weeks later, I and my dog were attacked by a man-eating time traveler who is distantly related to this 900-year-old alien who abandoned me on a space station, and I got run through a meat grinder along with my brain scan images, which is why they're all taped together by my personal Scotch tape assistant, Gwen Cooper."

When she heard her own name, Gwen swatted at his arm, although she was laughing so hard she was nearly falling out of her chair.

"Hey!" he protested, "I thought you were supposed to be nice to me!"

She allowed herself a few more chuckles before calming down a bit. "I _am_ being nice to you," she gave him a raised-eyebrow look. "But you should go see somebody. I know of somebody who'll understand immortals from the 51'st century and appreciate your 'abnormally-proportioned brains'" she added air quotes to the last part.

"Are you really being honest with me?" Jack smiled knowingly.

"Yes!" she protested. "Just try it please, Jack. For us."

"Because you love me?"

"Mmm-hmm."

He sighed. "Guess I don't have a choice."

"You'll go?"

"Soon as I get a chance," he relented.

"We'll give you a chance soon, then." For a moment, she hesitated, before leaning forward and giving him a quick peck on the cheek, just as she had the other day before he'd left. Then, pushing back her chair, she got up and left.

"You—" _Missed_, Jack started to call after her.

Something, however, held him back.

He watched one of his best friends leave, then turned to see his dog again.

To his utter surprise, his eyelids had rolled back slightly, revealing the dark brown eyes underneath. "Jaws?!" he breathed, not wanting to get his hopes up too soon.

The big eyes blinked again, and the brown-and-white dog slowly lifted his head, his ears even twitching as he perceived where he was at. Jack couldn't contain the grin that spread across his face.

"You know, I'd lick your face, but it's just too ugly!" he joked, rubbing the dog's soft head with his good hand. "Good dog. You're a good dog, you know that? There you go, attaboy!" he praised when Jaws sat right up, starting to lick his hand vigorously, giving him the big-eyed happy look he'd come to love in just a day.

"Did you say, 'boy'?" Owen said, sticking his head in through the door.

"She's awake?" Ianto said excitedly, bumping into him from behind.

"Aww!" Tosh cried, hitting both of them from behind. "Come on, guys, let me see her!"

"Whaddaya mean, 'she'?" Jack asked them crossly, continuing to pet the dog as he woke up.

His whole team's eyes went wide as they froze in the doorway, incredulous looks on all their faces before bursting into laughter.

"You have got to be kidding me," Ianto chuckled, his face turning red as he spoke. "You thought it was a _male_?"

"Pah-ha-ha!" Tosh erupted again, barely containing her laughter. "_You_ of all people!"

"You just take another look at that dog and tell me that's a male!" Owen instructed, looking more amused by the moment.

Jack felt his face turning red. "_WHAT?!_" he protested, crossing his fingers as the growing feeling that he'd forgotten to check something very important crossed his mind.

"Guys, get out of the way!" he heard Gwen's voice from behind the rest. "I wanna get a picture!"

"No!" Jack whined, "No pictures with my dog!"

"You mean your baby girl?" Owen mocked good-naturedly, causing the other three to burst into laughter again.

Jack was at a crossroads between being very annoyed with them and very frustrated with himself at the same time. "I didn't—I didn't—it's not like he's a _person_!" he stammered. "No, I didn't _check_—!"

His protests were not quelling the spontaneous laughter from the rest of his team.

"Oh, come on!" he yelled finally. "I've never had a dog before! Laugh all you want!"

Jaws began barking loudly, happily joining in on the excessive levels of noise in the small room.

"Oh, shut up," he groaned, still petting him—her—as he did so. The dog simply responded by a single, resounding bark right in his face, causing little drops of dog spit to land in his eye. He blinked repeatedly, trying to clear it out again.

By this time, the laughter was finally starting to die down and he faced the dog again, still trying to come to terms with his mistake—and for whatever reason that he hadn't noticed before, he could tell that the dog was _definitely_ a girl and not a boy.

Jack couldn't believe he'd made such a stupid mistake. Tosh was right—of all people, he was usually so keenly aware…

He frowned, holding her warm, furry sides. "Well, at least this explains why you're so sassy," he acquiesced, raising an eyebrow as he looked her over yet again.

"Are you making sexist comments regarding your dog?" Gwen demanded, pretending to be angry as she physically parted the waters of people, brandishing the lab camera high over her head.

"Can't I do anything right?" Jack whined at her, though internally he was starting to see just how funny the whole situation really was.

"C'mon! Everybody in the middle!" Gwen ordered, waving at the rest of them to crowd around the dog.

Jack rolled his eyes, but sat where he was as the other members of his team gathered around, grinning their little 21'st century heads off. The light flashed on the camera, and Gwen sprinted up over the bed, leaving a dirt-covered boot print on the white sheets as she scrambled to get into the picture before the camera snapped.

Jaws barked happily, enjoying the attention, and Jack finally relented and smiled as well, deciding that, secretly, he liked being surrounded with friends as much as the dog did.

A 'click!' came from the camera, and all was done as the rest disbursed.

Jack got up from his chair, stretching out his legs tiredly as Jaws hopped down and started rubbing against his leg. "Am I the captain again, now?" he called out, waiting for the team's response.

"Sure, why not?" Owen joked from the other room.

"I guess you can be in charge for once," Tosh grinned, rumpling up his hair affectionately. Ianto rolled his eyes, not seeing why a declaration would make any difference.

"Let's go home," said Gwen, putting away the camera.

"That was what I was supposed to say, Cooper!" Jack protested.

She laughed, punching him lightly in the shoulder before looping an arm around his neck. "Just kidding, Boss. I missed you."

The five of them headed outside into the cold, along with the addition of Jaws strutting along by Jack's side. It had been a long night. Hopefully nothing too drastic would happen the next morning; it was Christmas, after all!

_**Christmas Day, 2009, 1:23 p.m. **_

A giant red planet appeared in the sky, completely disrupting all attempts at Christmas celebrations.

As Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Tosh, and Owen were rushing in to find out what the heck was going on, five minutes later the planet disappeared again without explanation. The entire team was completely baffled.

They pulled up to investigate the Naismith Corporation, to find glass and destruction everywhere, along with a giant portal-like thing that would keep Owen puzzled for months.

The Master was nowhere to be found, although UNIT had (reluctantly) informed them that he had never been captured.

And most importantly, and unbeknownst to all of them, the Doctor died that day.

However, considering that his friend was a Time Traveler and somewhat prone to creating paradoxes, Jack was inevitably destined to encounter him again…


End file.
